Director Heir
by The Exile
Summary: Lucca has reconstructed the Arris Dome Communications Centre and wants Marle to be the first of the Guardia royal line to become its Director. Post-Trigger, pre-Cross, spoilers for both.
1. Chapter 1

"Are you leaving the castle, Your Majesty?

"Oh, I'm just going out to see my fr..." Princess Nadia (or Marle to her best friends) spotted the concerned and disapproving expression on the blue-liveried Royal Guard's face and immediately changed her bearing. Clearing her throat, straightening herself up and fixing him a cold, arrogant gaze designed to accommodate no argument, she corrected herself, "We are attending a meeting with the Director of Research and Development, to discuss matters that are vital to the Kingdom's future. Matters that you are not privy to. You have a good reason for delaying us?"

"The Institute is clear across the other side of town, Your Majesty, and it will grow dark soon. You should take some security with you. I'll prepare a retinue for you immediately."

She sighed, her mind working quickly to think of a reply. A real Queen like her mother would have been able to think of an answer immediately. Her mother had been able to diffuse all sorts of sensitive diplomatic situations, even prevent conflicts with other nations, and Princess Nadia couldn't even get her own personal guards to do what she wanted them to do. A lot of the time, she still forgot altogether that she was a Princess. She was still in training, she supposed, and she was making a lot of progress since she had actually decided to put her mind to it. Until a year or so ago, she had been avoiding the task, hoping it would go away if she could only find enough distractions to delay it indefinitely. It had seemed like an unbearably dull chore at best, when she could be spending her youth outdoors, exploring the world and having a good time. At worst it felt like a threat to her very identity, with people four times her age trying to turn her into the perfect, polite little Princess, stuff her into those ridiculous court dresses that she couldn't even move or breathe in, plan out her entire life until the time came for her to pass the same responsibility onto an heir. Gradually, she realised that she could get a lot done as a Princess as long as she put on a good mask and played the role well, that people were a lot more likely to show her respect and even obey her orders, as long as she phrased them correctly. She was quite good at giving orders and she found herself actually quite enjoying it. People rarely tried to tell her what to do, as long as she gave the impression that she herself knew what she was doing. Her father was increasingly passing on greater responsibilities to her and in the eyes of most people in Guardia's royal court, she was already the Queen in all but name.

Of course, that extra responsibility meant that a lot of expectations were being put on her and the consequences of failure were much more dangerous. She constantly worried that she wasn't learning fast enough, that she had left it too late to start concentrating properly on her studies. Her mother had already been running the castle at her age, but then, her mother hadn't also been busy on a time-travelling adventure, saving the entire planet from a monstrous extraterrestrial parasite. Her quest had taught her a lot that she couldn't have learnt from the royal tutors.

"I thought I made it plain that this matter is discrete. I cannot discuss matters of national security when I have attracted the eye of every casual bystander by swanning through town surrounded by an entire retinue of royal guards!"

In a way, it was true. Lucca had told her to keep the matter private, to let as few people know that she was even present at the Institute. Her genius best friend had even insisted that she actually approach the building after dark, from one of the maintenance entrances rather than the front door. That she was being so mysterious only made Marle more curious. What kind of contraption had she invented now, in her new role as leading researcher for the Kingdom? Was it really a matter of national security, as she was attempting to imply by her half-truth, or did Lucca just want to arrange for them to have time to talk in an informal setting, so that Marle had a much-needed chance to unwind?

"Quite correct, my lady, but the sensitive nature of such a matter might in itself put you at greater risk. What if a foreign agent, also after the information, hears of your involvement and decides to target you? We already suspect that Porre has at least two spies in the court!"

Marle had heard the rumours that Porre was making some kind of aggressive political move on Guardia already, and that it could potentially lead to war if things went really badly. It was beyond her why Porre would want to cause trouble with Guardia now. The Kingdom or Porre was fully aware that a threat to the entire world had been very narrowly averted, mostly by the hands of people from whatever passed for Guardia in the various time periods they had visited. If anything, they should be grateful, and should be worrying more about the fate of the world as a whole than petty disputes between nations. Porre didn't even have any grudges against Guardia and they weren't running out of any resources that Guardia had in any quantity worth invading for. If anything, Marle had expected Medina, a city populated by beings who weren't even fond of the human race, to cause the most trouble. However, as the more sensible of her advisors were fond of pointing out to her, war didn't really make sense, it was a pointless waste of lives and resources, the people involved in it often weren't sure how and when it started and it was best to avoid it unless absolutely necessary, for the good of everyone in the Kingdom.

Anyway, she doubted her friend would be developing military grade weapons. She had invented small-scale weapons and armour for the personal defence of the party during their perilous quest but never really enjoyed fighting all that much. Most of her projects these days were to do with replicating various useful technology they had encountered on their visits to the future, in particular humanoid robots, with some experiments involving fusions of magic and technology. She could see how a foreign spy might interpret some of these as weapons, or at least see potential military applications for the nation who managed to obtain the technology, so she made a mental note to warn Lucca about improving her security if the scientist really was working on something potentially dangerous.

"Two elite guards, then," she said, "Biggs and Wedge. I trust those two the most. And they don't come into the actual meeting with me! As I'm sure you remember from the incident last week, Director Ashtear has rather powerful automated defences in the restricted areas of the institute, so we'll be okay."

The 'automated defences' consisted of a network of cameras and alarms, automated sensors that could detect the change in certain conditions, several turrets around the building, sentry drones that patrolled the corridors as well as new features each time Marle visited the Institute, some of which Lucca entirely forgot to warn her about. It was always amusing, while fortunately remaining mostly non-lethal, when her guards accidentally discovered the new features for themselves. The security features were the least interesting new developments that were rapidly emerging from inside the restored warehouse in the forest near Lucca's house, now known as the Guardia Insitute for Science and Technology Innovations (GISTI for short). It had been a good move to give her friend the role of the institute's Director and head researcher. She was already famous throughout the Kingdom for saving the world using her inventions, so the people knew that the choice wasn't just favouritism, but that the young woman was more than capable of pioneering a scientific revolution in Guardia. It also meant the two friends had legitimate business visiting each other at all hours. It meant prestige and a steady wage for Lucca, rather than having to rely on being able to invent, produce and sell her machines on time. Marle also hoped that it in some way went towards repaying the debt she knew she already owed Lucca, a debt that she could never entirely clear.

The Princess was not unaware that Lucca had also been in love with Crono. As Crono's childhood friend, Marle supposed that Lucca had the stronger claim to his heart, but it didn't change the fact that, when it came to the question, Crono had chosen Marle. She was aware that there would probably be an argument between them at some point, one that would probably make Marle wish she was sitting in a diplomatic council with the Porre ambassador instead, so she wanted to make the situation as favourable as she possibly could between them without actually giving up her very real love of Crono. While she knew a person's heart couldn't be bought off, at least she was showing that she was not actively trying to stop her friend achieving any of her dreams in life, they just happened to have come into conflict over this particular dream.

The day to finish their fight over Crono hadn't come yet, however, and as far as Marle could tell, Lucca was still acting like the same friend towards her as always. At least, she assumed that was why she was still being invited over to the Institute.

* * *

><p>Marle had wanted to head into Guardia town to look for interesting trinkets in the shops, see what foreign curiosities the trans-continental ferry had brought to Guardia, say hello to Crono and Lucca's mothers. It would be too difficult to justify such a diversion to the guards, however, especially as she was working the 'clandestine mission in the interests of national security' angle. Even if she was allowed such a diversion, the guards would draw too much attention to her, their military bearing might scare her friends' mothers and generally would prevent her from having the fun, casual trip into town that she wanted.<p>

Lucca's house on the hill, and the small forest with the Institute hidden away inside it, was on the outskirts of the town, on the other side to the castle. It was fairly close to the sea but there was no beach, only a sheer cliff. The building itself looked very different to the creaky old warehouse it had once been, its architecture now far ahead of its time, all sharp-angled, gleaming steel and glass. Several mobile buildings and heavier equipment were dotted around the central building, including a small runway for a few prototypes Lucca had for flying machines. As soon as Marle and the guards started on the forest path, a robot around the size of a five-year-old child appeared from behind a tree, beeping at them in a melodic, rather cheerful pattern, before running around Marle and her startled retinue in a slightly wobbly circle. The robots were not unlike Robo, their self-aware mechanical ally from the future, in appearance. Robo's future had been a doomed world, almost certainly erased from the timeline along with Lavos. Added to this, the project that produced Robo in the first place had been a disaster, the control AI of the factory becoming corrupted by Lavos and turning hostile against humans until Crono's party were forced to destroy it. It was highly unlikely that Robo still existed in the repaired future timeline, or at least not in his original form, so Lucca had become obsessed with manufacturing her own humanoid robots in an effort to start off the chain of scientific breakthroughs that would result in Robo's existence. With the sophistication of the mini-Robos that ran rampant around the Institute these days, Marle wouldn't be surprised if her friend ended up building Robo herself in the next thirteen years, never mind causing him to be built in the next thirteen hundred.

"Welcome, Your Majesty! Director Ashtear is expecting you!" warbled the brightly painted blue robot before tripping over a tree root again. Biggs winced as the robot's clanky voice carried clear across the forest and probably all the way back down to the town. The guards were always nervous around the robots as it was; the mini-Robos had a knack for appearing out of nowhere, without having any obvious stealth technology, and were armed with small but perfectly functional-looking laser pistols and giant armoured fists.

"Are you sure you're supposed to be running around here greeting guests? Didn't Lucca tell you anything about this being a secret visit?" asked Marle, "Do you guys even know your way around the forest? I've never seen you out of the building before."

"LOBO!" Marle heard another female voice yell, slightly deeper than her own, at the top of her lungs, "Lobo, get your ass here or I swear it's the recycler for you..."

"Hi there, Lucca!" Marle waved at her.

"Oh, there you are, Marle! Wait until you see what I have to show you! So that's where Lobo went. I think I made his sensors a bit too powerful. He's supposed to greet guests but he keeps suddenly running off to track people down before we even know they're there, and scaring the shit out of them. Lobo, make Biggs and Wedge a pot of tea for two and show them where the waiting room is!"

"I won't be long," Marle promised them, waving goodbye to the guards as she followed her friend through the side door she had been told to enter through. Wedge gave her a worried look while Biggs still glared suspiciously at the oblivious robot. They followed their hosts in through the front door anyway, jumping when the turrets swiveled to track them, even though the same thing happened each time they visited.

"I'm sorry in advance if those two cause any trouble," Marle looked over her shoulder at the guards, "I tried my hardest to come here alone but the paranoia is even worse than normal lately."

"It's okay. All this is going to have to be shared with the Government sooner or later anyway. One day it's going to have to go public, too. Mostly I just wanted you to be the first to see it. It's you that it affects the most."

"So, there really is a big secret project," said Marle, "And here I was expecting for us to have a nice chat like the old days."

"Ha, like I ever get time to do that nowadays! If it isn't endless health and safety checks, some guy in a suit is trying to get me to do paperwork."

"Don't talk to me about paperwork!" Marle groaned. Then they both began giggling.

"Seriously, they even make Princesses do paperwork?"

"We probably get the most of anyone. I'm surprised genius inventors have to do it."

"I was hoping a position as exciting as you made it sound wouldn't involve any paperwork, but I kind of get the impression it's a part of life when you grow up," Lucca yawned and stretched, "Sometimes I wish I was just back in my lab in the basement, tinkering and making things explode."

"Please don't blow up the Institute!" Marle caught sight of two mini-Robos darting in and out of the rooms that lined the narrow corridors, mostly storage cupboards, power stations and maintenance hatches. She thought she heard a third robot but the noise could have been any one of a myriad of ominous mechanical clanking noise sources. They were inside the bowels of the beast here, not the pretty public eye of the front entrance.

"Don't worry, all the dangerous stuff's underground, same as my house," she said, "Actually, the thing I wanted to show you is also underground. Not next to the dangerous stuff! A different floor. Even deeper underground."

"You've got construction rights on the land, Lucca, not mining rights."

"Trust me, this is very worth it. In fact, I think it might be critical to our future."

"Oh, good. I didn't tell any outright lies today."

"Sounds like you've been getting that diplomacy practice you were talking about," Lucca stopped at a small staff room for the very few maintenance workers who were actually human, mostly there to press the 'on' button on the robots every morning. She keyed some numbers into a large box on the wall, placing a cup from a large stack underneath the chute. There was a low clattering rumble followed by a trickling sound, then a stream of strong black coffee poured out of the chute. Marle had seen that invention before. It was supposed to be operated by placing a coin inside the slot but Lucca had included a secret password for herself and her friends to use the machine for free. It could dispense tea and hot chocolate too. Despite Lucca's best efforts, it all kind of tasted like metallic coffee.

"I wish it was still just practice," she said, "I get the impression I have to watch everything I say, these days."

"I swear this development will make things easier for everyone," promised Lucca. At the end of the corridor, they stopped at an elevator with an unusually heavy door. The small turrets just above the door and the two guard robots armed with laser rifles swivelled around to follow their every movement.

"It's Director Ashtear. My guest has my permission to be here," said Lucca. The robots seemed to react to her voice. They apologised in clanky voice, then stood down and return to their posts on either side of the elevator door. Lucca keyed in a password on a terminal wired to the door, causing it to beep in satisfaction, then slowly rumble open. Lucca and Marle stepped onto the large steel platform, more like a service elevator for some very heavy duty machinery than a personnel elevator, and the scientist pushed the button for the bottom floor. The bottom floor wasn't clearly displayed on the elevator, she had to flip open a hatch that just looked like part of the wall, then press a hidden button. More of Lucca's melodramatic secrets. There was an interminable five minutes of loud rumbling, ominous clanks, creeping claustrophobia despite the size of the elevator, not helped by the stark strip-lighting. Then the elevator lurched to a halt and went 'ding'. The door slowly rumbled open again and the two of them stepped into a world that Marle had no idea existed underneath the Institute.

"Is there something you aren't telling me? This thing looks like it's designed to be Lavos-proof," commented Marle as she looked up at the final set of doors.

"Makes you wonder how those two got down here," said Lucca, indicating two of the mini-Robos who were randomly running around the roughly hewn chamber in front of the thick steel vault-like door to the next room. Lucca walked over to the access terminal and spoke into it, then inputted another password. The door slid open and they walked down a pipe-like metal corridor. As they walked towards the chamber, the temperature began to drop - Marle saw thick black cooling pipes trailing along the floor - and the humming, whirring sound of a giant mechanical heartbeat became louder.


	2. Chapter 2

"What *is* that thing?" demanded Marle. She craned her neck to look up at the giant screens that covered most of the walls of the chamber. Most of them were online and currently showed grids of blue light dotted with windows that displayed what looked like pictures of various regions of Guardia and random information about them. Equipment that looked vaguely related to cameras, broadcasting and communication, and a few printers that occasionally spewed readouts, were mounted lower down on the walls. The actual computer towers covered the floor, slightly raised on brackets to protect them. A space had been left in the centre of the room for a desk area full of control panels that seated only three people. The high-backed leather swivel chairs looked comfortable and there was a definite sense, almost like a throne room, that the one in the middle was for the important person.

"You should recognise this. It's modeled on the Arris Dome Communications Centre!"

"The machine from the future?"

"Sit in the big chair," Lucca encouraged her, "It's going to be yours, once I iron out all the bugs and I can safely take it out of admin mode. Do you want another coffee? There's another vending machine on the wall there. It's the first one I managed to get to dispense the cups automatically. The Computer can operate it for you. Just ask it!"

Marle gingerly sat down on the chair in the middle. She could reach out and touch all the controls from there, the central nervous system of the enormous mechanical beast.

"Um... can I have a cup of coffee, please... does it have a name?"

"I don't think so. It's not supposed to be a human you can identify with, like Robo was," replied Lucca, "That doesn't mean you're allowed to disrespect it, though."

"Can I give it a name anyway? Robo didn't have a real name before I gave him one, and he seemed to like the one we gave him," she said, "Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"

"I don't think it really cares," said Lucca, "But you can give it a name if it makes you feel more comfortable. It won't answer to the name, though. It never does."

"How about Alice? Because it sounds like 'Arris'," decided Marle, "May I have a cup of coffee, Alice?"

The tell-tale clunk and trickle of the vending machine was barely audible over the hum of the Computer itself. Five seconds later, one of the mini-Robos appeared behind her, beeping melodically to itself and attempting to push a cup of coffee into her hands. Lucca sat down in the chair to the right and started fishing underneath her chair for something.

"I'm working on a much more efficient way of operating it, an interface that's more intuitive and less like operating a computer," Lucca told her, "I realise you don't have much experience operating machines like this yet, so I wanted to make it so that you didn't have to waste too much time in training. Then we can get the network fully up and running and hook it up to the outside world as soon as possible."

"What network? What is this system actually for, and why do you want me to learn how to use it so badly? I'm a Princess. Computers are your job!"

"Don't you remember what Doan said, once our quest was over?" Lucca gave her an exasperated look, "He's a descendant of the Guardia royal line. He's also the descendant of the Director of the Arris Dome Communications Centre. The two duties are supposed to be one and the same!"

"So, Alice is a royal computer?" Marle gave it a sceptical look.

"The Arris Dome Communications Centre collected information from all over the planet, about every topic imaginable, including a lot of state secrets. It also networked Guardia so that instantaneous communication was possible. Several vital systems such as medical and military facilities were wired to it and could be overridden and operated from the Centre. Would you give control over a facility that potentially dangerous to the Kingdom to anyone apart from the royal family?"

"I'm not even sure I would even trust my dad with that," said Marle, remembering some unfortunate incidents with her father being too trusting of a certain corrupt Chancellor, "I thought it was maybe because they don't have a royal family in the future. Some Governments change their structure a lot over time. I read about it. It happened to Medina. It had been run by evil overlords like Magus for thousands of years, but then the last descendant of Ozzie was deposed in the year 600, there was a short period of anarchy, then the Merchant's Guilds kind of took over once the ferry expanded to reach Medina. And yes, I know the Merchant's Guilds kind of behave like evil overlords a lot of the time, but nobody's complained yet and at least they trade with us now."

"If you really think that's true, then don't you want to prepare for it in advance? We're not really talking about a long period of time. This system is supposed to be firmly in place by the Day of Lavos. If if you want Guardia to actually go the way you intended it to, you have to make sure you represent its future."

"What are you talking about? What the heck are you plotting?"

"We don't know what's going to happen to force that change. For all we know, it might be very bad. The future citizens of Guardia might have a very good reason to decide not to have a royal family any more. Or it might just be evolution - a future society might need a Director more than it does a Queen. We have to make sure it goes right, by acting first. I trust you to be a good leader. That's why I want you to be the first Director-Heir."

"This sounds a lot more complicated than the things you usually have ready for me when you call me up suddenly. Who's helping you?"

"I've been working on this for a long time before showing it to you. And yes, I must admit that I've had some help. Melchior still comes to visit sometimes, and I still have some objects from other time periods lying around that I've been trying to reverse engineer. This interface I want to show you is based on the Prism Shades!"

"You said you would leave the space-time continuum alone now that Lavos is definitely gone! Are you sure there's nothing you should be telling me?"

"Loosen up! I'm not actually messing with space and time, this is all things that either got changed a lot or never quite slotted back into their own time periods."

"To be honest, I think this sounds completely crazy and I suspect you're up to a lot more than you're telling me, but I know you won't let me go once you're excited about a new project," said Marle, "What is it exactly you want me to do?"

"Just wait a moment," said Lucca. When she finished her search under the chair, she pulled out what looked like a large helmet with a full-face visor made out of dark glass. It was attached to the computer with a black cable. Lucca explained, "It's the interface for the machine. It's supposed to fully immerse you in the experience."

"I'm supposed to wear it? I'll ruin my hair!"

Lucca studied her friend's hair as though it was a newly discovered form of extraterrestrial life, which it could be mistaken for at a casual glance, what with its apparent anti-gravity capability. She couldn't see how a crown was going to fit over that hair once Marle became Queen, but she decided not to say anything except, "You're right, I hadn't thought of that! I'll make the next prototype a band around the eyes that clips around on a hinge, or something. I'm hoping it'll be wireless, too."

Marle sighed and placed the helmet over her head, being as gentle with pushing her hair down as possible. The weight around her neck was uncomfortable but nowhere near as heavy as she was expecting.

"Take your time adjusting to it! You might feel a little disoriented at first. It'll work best if you lean back in your chair," advised Lucca.

Marle did as advised, then lowered the device fully over her eyes. She was about to comment that she couldn't see a thing when a series of glowing lights began to appear all around her, as though she was lost in an enchanted forest at midnight. She let out a sharp breath. There was no way all those things could really be there! After a few seconds, she recognised the pattern that the dancing lights were tracing across the dark plane: it was a full topological map of Guardia. She instinctively tried to find her current location on the map and the Institute appeared in the forest, along with a window that showed a few facts it thought might be relevant, such as what was currently being developed there, how much power it was using up (suspiciously not as much as she expected) and how much money it was likely to generate.

"Just act as though it were real!" said Lucca, "Talk to it, I mean, point to what you're interested in and move things around, ask it questions! Get it to make you another cup of coffee! Actually, don't, you might spill it on the headset. Get it make me another cup of coffee!"

"Um..." began Marle, still staring around her with a bewildered expression on her face, feeling a lot like a particularly ignorant tourist. She stared over the rooftops of Guardia Town to try and make out the spires of the Castle. The wire frame model of the building immediately came into the foreground, or she drifted closer to it, she wasn't sure which. She was told the names of all the major Government figures, as if she didn't know who her parents and the people she worked with every day were, and a few facts about the castle's history and architecture.

"Does it actually know who I am?" she asked Lucca.

"Have you introduced yourself yet?"

"I thought you said you designed it for me to use! Are you telling me you didn't even tell it who I am?"

"I fed it recordings of your voice and gave you admin level access. I can't introduce you properly if you're not there, it'd be rude!"

Marle couldn't fault her friend's logic. She cleared her throat again, looked up at the sky (she wasn't sure why but it felt as though the machine's actual presence was all around her, watching her from above) and projected her voice.

"Good afternoon, Alice, my name is Princess Nadia, heir to throne of Guardia, or Marle to my friends. How do you do? I'm looking forward to working with you!"

Her voice rang out surprisingly loud, making her realise for the first time how quiet the world around her was. She could still hear the background hums and beeps of the computer's inner workings, as well as what sounded like Lucca noisily drinking coffee right next to her ear, but the virtual world itself was eerily silent. It had only just come into being. Before that it had been dormant, in a deep sleep. A couple of minutes passed with nothing happening except a diagram of the cloud pattern, current wind speed and direction over Guardia (Marle wondered how it found out things like that - she suspected it was something to do with tying equipment to balloons) appearing in front of her, and more silence. Maybe it hadn't heard her. Maybe it really did think of itself as female now and was offended at being called 'it'. Maybe Marle looked like an idiot talking to a machine, and Lucca had played an elaborate prank on her as part of her revenge.

"The system isn't responding to voice calls? Maybe the volume controls are a little wobbly again. Can you try yelling louder for me?" Lucca called out.

Marle took a deeper breath and prepared to use the voice she reserved for crowded rooms full of people who weren't listening to her and palace guards who thought she was still a child and tried to stop her doing things she wanted to do.

"HELLO... MY... NAME... IS... PRINCESS... NADIA... AND..."

* * *

><p>She was suddenly cut off by a sensation that hit her like a tidal wave. It was a feeling of immense power, like being anywhere within sight of Lavos, but not malevolent. In fact, it was completely neutral, eerily so, and relentlessly insistent on making her surrender to its flow of light and information. Panic hit her, a notion forming in her mind that Lucca's device had brought her too close to the machine and she had burned out her mind, or her consciousness would be swallowed up, that maybe Lucca had even planned it this way. Then she remembered that she was still alive, she wasn't even in pain, only a little overwhelmed by it all, and that it was better to stay calm and not thrash around when you were adrift at sea.<p>

Mostly she just saw streams of light, flickering images, the brush of an inquisitive mind that sent wordless questions at her. Memories, her own and those of others, in no particular order, things both mundane and that she was absolutely sure nobody should still remember after the timeline had been repaired. Another map of Guardia, this time in vibrant colours, a conflagration of rainbow light as unfettered information flowed through the country at the pace of life itself, and she felt as though she was really flying above it now, free as a bird. She left Guardia, saw other places as well, the whole world at once, then places beyond the world, maybe beyond time. Pain lanced through her as she screamed, her mind overloaded with things her human thought processes weren't really supposed to deal with. Red light washed through her awareness, her own ego suspended in the middle of the void, then she saw one more image: a human face. Male, blue eyes, light brown hair kept short and straight but not obsessively so, probably around ten years older than her. He had a fragile look about him, as though he might disappear if she didn't keep willing him into existence. On his face was a bewildered expression similar to her own. He wore a speaker headset: Marle remembered seeing Lucca use one. He opened his mouth to speak, reached a slender hand out to her, then as he began to mouth the words that she couldn't hear over the roar of her own pulse, she was wrenched back into consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, the pain was still there, along with some of the after-images of her experience. She lay slumped back in the chair and Lucca stood over her, shaking her and calling her name over and over again. The headset had been torn off.

"Marle, thank goodness you're awake! I was worried I had killed you. What the heck happened to you?"

"I don't know. Why don't you know? Why were you doing something that could kill me?" she demanded.

"I had no idea that could happen. In fact, I have no idea *what* just happened. Your brain waves were spiking up and down all over the place. You stopped breathing for a few seconds. The read-outs made no sense. Then... your pendant was glowing, Marle!"

The Princess instinctively cried out and snatched the red crystal pendant, pulling its chain from around her neck, then depositing it into Lucca's hands. She didn't want to risk losing it altogether if something bad happened again, and it was Lucca's turn to be a test subject for once. The scientist gave it a thoughtful look, torn between curiosity and a need to not be holding the object that sometimes transports people backwards in time to where people were trying to kill them. She whistled at one of the mini-Robos and handed the pendant to them.

"Don't get innocent bystanders involved!" cried Marle, "Tell me the truth! What did you just try and do to me? What else have you been doing behind my back? That thing was *not* made in the present day!"

"I was telling you the entire truth! I'm as confused about this as you are. Probably more confused, as you haven't actually told me what it is that happened to you in there," Lucca pointed out, "Look, there is one thing... when I said I asked Melchior for help... I'm powering this thing using Dreamstone. I know the stuff shouldn't really exist this far into the future, but the idea of building a wave-powered turbine off the coast didn't really work, and it's better than tearing up half the Guardia countryside looking for fuel!"

"Anything else?"

"Melchior was talking a little oddly. He was talking about Gaspar and Belthazar as though he had been communicating with them quite recently. I assumed it was powerful wizard stuff, or maybe that they'd all decided to come and stay in this time period at the last minute, and they're hiding out in the mountains or something.

"Well, my pendant could just be reacting to the Dreamstone," said Marle, looking down at the object held in the mini-Robo's hand. The robot wasn't sure what it was supposed to do with it, so it was still just stood there holding it.

"We could try again with you taking off the pendant first," suggested Lucca, "Once I've gone over everything else thoroughly and made sure I haven't made some kind of dangerous mistake. It really would be useful if you tell me what you saw!"

"Don't you get it? I'm not going ahead with any more of these stupid experiments! You scare me half to death three times, making me think Lavos is coming back, and then you literally nearly kill me! Test these things out on yourself from now on!"

* * *

><p>"Wait a minute, I need to let you out again..." said Lucca, but by the time she had held out her arm as a gesture to stop, the Princess had already stormed over to the door. At Marle's yelled instruction, the vault door opened, as did the elevator door. Lucca watched the elevator door close behind her friend, who she really hoped would still remain friends after the accident, then ascend towards the ground floor.<p>

"So, she can even yell down electronic security doors now?" Lucca said to herself. Then she turned to the computer. She thought about putting the headset, which had always worked perfectly well for her, back on, but decided against it.

"Computer, run full diagnostics," she ordered. Instead of the usual diagnostics window that showed every part of the system and its status as it was being scanned, there was a stream of low-level error messages, followed by a window that said:

Director incorrectly logged out due to medical emergency. Supervisor cannot log in while user with overriding security level is not fully logged out. Suggest Director logs in again.

"Computer, you are still in prototype. You do not have a Director. Revert to test mode settings and give me test admin authority," ordered Lucca, now slightly flustered. If Marle had been registered as Director in the system at this point, it could render the entire system unusable.

Negative. User Nadia is Director. System cannot revert to test mode with live Director registered, as this is a security risk.

"Then log me in as a secondary user with Supervisor-level authority and run diagnostics as thoroughly as you can with only Supervisor-level authority. That should still be almost the entire system," said Lucca. She swapped into the Supervisor's chair to make things simpler. The computer was at least following those orders. Still, not having full access to the computer she was still in the process of building would make her life very difficult. She hoped she could talk Marle back round to co-operating, maybe by appealing to her natural curiosity, recklessness and obsessive need to check that Lavos was definitely gone. Not that the computer could possibly find out such a thing but Lucca could make something up.

When she looked at the computer, at the bizarre readouts it was still giving out, and remembered how Marle's pendant had begun to glow as it had whenever anything bad happened, how Marle's face had been that of someone who had found out far more than they should about the Universe, Lucca wasn't sure she could say exactly what the computer did and didn't know any more. She had to get the whole story from Marle, at all costs.


	3. Chapter 3

It was only when she had almost ran down the path out of the forest, the Institute out of sight, that Marle realised she had forgotten her pendant.

At least it had been a convenient excuse when the guards asked her why she was so flustered. She didn't want to cause any panic around the castle by letting them know that there was something very wrong with one of the Institute's top secret projects. She had been trying her best to hide her unease behind the mask of authority but it rarely worked on the guards. As far as she could tell, they had some kind of psychic powers when it came to telling that something was wrong with her, and they were also worse gossips than the maids unless strictly ordered to keep secrets on pain of death. Already mentally drained, she didn't have it in her to conjure that much enthusiasm about the situation. She just wanted to go home, take a long bath and get some sleep. She wished she could just forget what happened tonight, write it all off as a particularly bad day, but she still wasn't convinced that something serious wasn't going wrong.

She wasn't sure how she had managed to forget her most precious possession in the entire world, the pendant given to her by her departed mother, but had still somehow remembered to use her healing magic on herself so that the pain and exhaustion of her ordeal didn't show – they would accept an excuse about her seeming upset but any actual damage to their Princess would have caused them to jump to, and act upon, all sorts of outlandish conclusions. The trouble was, as with most people during moments of panic, she didn't really remember what exactly had gone through her mind. She could only assume that she had walked out of the room without the pendant, maybe still too afraid of picking it up after remembering the first time it had started glowing, what had happened to her and how much worse it could so easily have been. She might have instinctively avoided picking it up after discarding it out of sheer stubbornness, reverting to her rather spoilt learned behavior – it hadn't been her fault she was forced to take it off and it wasn't her responsibility to give it back. Once she realised it was gone, she had been too embarrassed to go back into the room to ask for it back after her rather childish outburst.

She avoided contact with people on her way back to the castle, asking the guards to make sure she got back to her chambers as quickly and with as little interruption as possible and claiming that she was worried about her health if she exhausted herself any further. This prompted a lecture from Wedge about how she shouldn't have made such a long journey on foot in the first place, giving her the impression that it would now be more difficult to persuade them to let her out in the future, but she was so desperate to get some rest that she didn't care any more.

She was also aware that the more people she spoke to before she had sorted the problem out, the more opportunities she had to accidentally tell the wrong person. She knew she had to tell somebody at some point, so that she should get her help with the problem. The only person she could really trust with the knowledge was Crono. If this was the sort of problem that would lead to more Exciting Adventures, she would need a swordsman of Crono's caliber to help her. She was no pushover herself – she had been secretly training herself and pestering the royal huntsmen to train her in the use of bows, she had some aptitude for battle magic, she could probably hold her own against a rabid boar or an assassin from Porre – but compared to the others, she was better off as a healer, not a fighter, the things that they had encountered during the last days of their adventure were true monsters, demons, the sort of enemy that you needed to be a Legendary Warrior to slay. At the time that she received the invitation from Lucca, she was relieved that Crono wasn't around. He was still in Medina, buying a replacement sword from Melchior. The ancient swordsmaster would inevitably keep him away from home for longer so that he could give Crono some more training, in the same way that Lucca couldn't visit him without a long lecture in the ramifications of their adventure for the entire space-time continuum. If Crono wasn't around, Marle didn't have to decide whether inviting him along to visit Lucca or not inviting him would make things more awkward. Now that there was a real emergency, she couldn't believe her thought process had been so petty. At least if Crono had visited Melchior and the old man had been involved in Lucca's project, he might have warned Crono about any problems with it. If not, if the Guru wasn't actually aware that this was going to happen, Marle might have to send Crono back to warn Melchior.

It suddenly occurred to her that she needed to ask Lucca for help in this, as well as for her pendant back. Despite her earlier promise not to be childish and petty any more, she dreaded confronting her friend again a lot more than she did a possible Lavos re-emergence. It was probably just because she couldn't really imagine having to fight Lavos again – the battle had been so outside the usual bounds of her experience that she could only really remember it as she would a very long and vivid nightmare, too surreal for her to believe it and still stay sane. By contrast, the thought of being humiliated and possibly losing her best friend was well within her capacity to imagine, profoundly dread and replay in her mind over and over, as the recording of the Apocalypse had been played back repeatedly by the Arris Dome supercomputer.

The computer that had activated by her hand, immediately, even though she didn't know anything about technology and was just pressing random buttons. Whenever she pressed random buttons on any other device associated with Lucca, it tried to take her hand off. Yet the computer had responded to her again. Now she thought about it, how she had felt in the presence of that centuries-old machine, the only survivor who still remembered the Fall, she knew it was the same machine. It was impossible but it didn't stop it being true. Maybe there was no such thing as impossibility in a world where time travel existed.

* * *

><p>She asked Biggs and Wedge to wake her up when the sun rose, so she could go and get her pendant back from Lucca first thing in the morning, and not to tell her father what had happened under any circumstances. Then she curled up in her soft silk sheets and fell into a much-needed sleep, if by no means peaceful or free of dreams.<p>

For a long while, her memory simply replayed the images she had seen while in contact with the Computer, in vast cascading torrents, too fast for her to really process. Occasionally she would see the man's face again. She tried to slow her thoughts down and focus on that face, using the authority that people had over her own dreams, assuming this was a normal dream that was purely her own. After a few attempts, it began to work. The man didn't notice her for a few minutes, he was staring at something in the distance that Marle couldn't see. Then he looked directly at her with an expression of wide-eyed horror on his face. At first she thought he was afraid of her but then she realised he was gesturing widely at her, desperately trying to get her to notice something. She followed his gaze and saw it: the blue grid-like displays of the Computer, even more vast than they had seemed at first, looming, swallowing the entire world, the same size as the sky.

On the screens, the same scene again. Lavos emerging from the ground. Fire rising into the sky, then falling again. Everything burning. The whole world in flames.

The man ran towards the screen, yelling wordlessly and gesturing at her to help. It was too dark to see what was happening, but he looked as though he was typing. Operating the Computer, she realised.

"Alice? What's going on?" she demanded, her voice almost a shriek, "Why are you showing me this? Is it going to happen again? How the hell do you even still know about this?"

The screens all went blank again, plunging her into near total darkness, except the one in the middle, which now showed an image of the man's face. His eyes were closed as though he was also asleep, his face serene.

**Director**, said the large white text in a very blocky, digital-looking font underneath the image of the face, **this was the Director. Are you the Director now?**

"But what you're showing me is in the future! No... it's not even in the future. It's not supposed to still be happening!"

**What time is this? Why is it so hard to connect to you?**

"It's... it's probably because I lost my pendant. And because I don't really know why this is happening or what I'm supposed to do about it." She didn't add that she didn't really want to be doing it. She was too afraid. She didn't want to anger it, all alone in this world entirely ruled by the Computer. She hoped it couldn't read her thoughts. She remembered its first question and added, "You're in the year 1000, if that helps. The thing you showed me... it happened in 1999."

**I see. You are a new Director. My last Director saved me. I hope you are a good Director, too.**

"Can you please tell me whether the thing you showed me is really going to happen?"

**History has been changed. I need more time to find out what is happening. Please bear with me until then.**

"You can really do that?"

**I hope nothing has happened to the Director I had there.**

"But he'll be having a better life now that the world isn't going to end! He won't have to risk his life to save you!"

**It isn't about living or dying...**

Marle could feel herself waking up from the dream, heard the calls of Biggs and Wedge. She tried to yell further questions, to demand to know what the computer was doing in her dreams and how, or whether their meeting had really happened at all, but the moment had already faded. She was in a bad mood even as she pulled her clothes on and opened the door.


	4. Chapter 4

Sneaking out of the castle didn't prove too difficult but she had been unable to leave through the front door. She heard her father's voice from his bedroom and saw a maid on her early morning rounds. Knowing from experience that the maid would start shrieking at the top of her voice and demanding explanations if startled, she decided to head out the other way using one of the many secret passages she had discovered in her endless search for new ways to sneak out unnoticed. She didn't really want the guards to know about it but it couldn't be helped and there were plenty more routes they didn't know about. After a crawl through some dank, dusty side passages that caused Biggs to complain bitterly about the state of his uniform, they emerged through a trapdoor above a tunnel that led out into a narrow forest path away from the castle. Wedge started complaining about the security risk of having this many alternative entrances to the castle but Marle reassured him that they were perfect for getting the royal family out safely during a siege, which was what the Computer's lingering presence in her mind felt like. Shadows of the wire-frame outline were still visible over the trees, the warbling of songbirds sounded like the little digital noises the Computer made when it tried to send a signal to another branch in another building and the sound of a Kilwala darting out of the undergrowth, abandoning its shelter of branches and leaves in favor of safely rebuilding somewhere else, almost made her jump. Only when she was out of the forest, away from the regular patrols of the guards who searched the paths for intruders, did she start to relax a little more.

The sunrise was still visible over the hill where Lucca's family home stood. A moving sillhouette on the horizon told her that somebody else was also up early, probably Lucca's mother drying some laundry outside. Now that Lucca had altered her own timeline so that her mother had never lost her legs in an accident involving one of Lucca's own inventions, she moved surprisingly fast for her age. There was no real need to hide from her, she still thought of them all as children playing together, including Biggs and Wedge, and would probably just wave at them all. They climbed the hill and continued on to the forest where the Institute was hidden.

As soon as she approached the clearing entrance, Marle saw that Lucca was running around outside, yelling at her mini-Robos in a distressed-sounding voice. Whatever she was doing, it didn't look like setting up shop for the day. When Marle ran up to her, overtaking the guards, she immediately spotted her and ran to meet her. Her face was red and she was out of breath.

"Have you seen Moto?"

"I haven't seen any of them," said Lucca, "Did one get out?"

"Get out? It's worse than that... he's got your pendant!"

"What? You let them take it?"

"I put it in my pocket! I was going to hand it back to you! I had no idea they knew how to pick pockets. I didn't think they would even want to. I certainly didn't teach them criminal behaviour!"

"Do you have any idea what they've done with it?"

"I think they've gone to return it to you. They aren't programmed with the route, though, Moto's probably completely lost by now."

"And they didn't realise you were going to do that yourself?"

"I... I'm sorry. I was still angry. I said out loud that I wasn't going to give it back to you if you were just going to throw it away whenever you have a tantrum, that it wasn't safe around you."

"You're probably right," she sighed, "Why do they even care that I have it back?"

"The Computer," she said, "They're all networked to it now, and they keep following its orders. I'm not sure when it happened. I think the Computer just did it on its own. I'm probably going to lose control of this facility..."

"It probably told them where the castle is! It has maps of everywhere!" said Marle.

"If that was the case, they would already be there, they left an hour ago and they move fast when they want to," said Lucca, "You didn't see anything, did you?"

She shook her head, "I didn't go through the front door, though, and a robot probably would do. The guards would have spotted them in the forest."

"Actually, I doubt they could," said Wedge, "Those little things sneak up on me and Biggs all the time and we're the best trained guards in the castle."

"Do the robots know how to track people? Could they have worked out I wasn't in the castle?" asked Marle.

"They can't, but I think the Computer has a tracking system. It definitely has a way of keeping tabs on where the robots are."

"Then we can ask the Computer to find the robots!"

"It won't respond to me when I ask it that question. It's a Director-level question, apparently," Lucca shook her head, "I don't know if it still recognises you as Director without your pendant..."

"Trust me, it does," said Marle, "In fact, I think the Computer might be able to find me even if I'm not sitting at its terminal. I'll explain it later. We need to find that robot. The poor little thing could be in trouble and it certainly won't be able to keep my pendant safe on its own!"

"It's a pain in the ass, but I hope it's okay," agreed Lucca. They ran down the corridor and called the elevator to go down into the depths of the Facility. Even compared to last time, the wait in the dim subterranean lighting of the painfully slow elevator seemed to take forever. The noises only unnerved Marle more. The feeling that the machine was alive, that this was its lair and they didn't really have any authority over the place any more, only grew more intense. If I get trapped down here, if the Computer turned hostile, the security systems would go into lockdown and they would never find her body. Marle wouldn't think twice about trusting Robo but Lucca had already told her that this machine didn't care about appearing sympathetic to humans, and she suddenly remembered what had happened to the Motherbrain, which had only been a factory director AI, once it obtained too much control over its environment. That could have been partly caused by Lavos' corruption but, with the memories floating around in the Computer's data banks, there was no way of telling what had happened to it. It was only when she was allowed out of the elevator again that her catastrophic train of thought stopped running around and around in her head like a hamster prophet of doom.

Welcome back, Director, the words flashed up on the screen as soon as she entered the room, I was concerned for your health.

"Where's the robot you sent looking for me? What did it do with my pendant?" she demanded.

There was a short pause before the Computer replied: The robot reached the midway point of Guardia Forest. It is still in possession of the pendant but at some point found it necessary to use lethal force to defend itself from a perceived attacker who attempted to remove the item from its possession. It has been severely damaged and rendered immobile.

"It's in the forest around the castle? Was it the guards who tried to attack it? Those idiots..."

The attackers could not be identified. They are not on my database, so unlikely to be Guardia soldiers. One was eliminated during the conflict and four retreated, two of whom were wounded.

"It could be wild animals, terrorists, pretty much anything, and you say it's gone and killed one of them," Marle sighed, "I didn't know they were that well armed."

"They've got laser pistols. They can take something down if they get the jump on it," said Lucca, "They're not supposed to get into dangerous situations, though!"

Now that I am aware of a threat to my utility robots and Guardia national security in general, I shall endeavour to begin a more thorough weapons programme, the Computer chipped in.

"No! No weapons programme! Please don't go starting any wars by trying to defend yourself from things when we don't even know if they exist yet!" cried Marle, "I'm ordering you as your Princess... as your Director-Heir!"

Very well. If you change your mind, just say the word.

"We'll get your robot back for you, don't worry!" she reassured the machine, "If it can't move, it should make it easier to find. Can you order it not to try and move, and try to keep me updated on the way there?"

Updating you is difficult without your control key but I shall do my best.

"Oh, and, Alice... was it really you in my dream last night?"

I contacted you last night. I was concerned for your safety. I can see how this could have manifested to the human psyche as a dream. The use of dreamstone in a mechanical device allows greater interface between human creativity and machine logic, thus greater synchronisation between machine and user in general, but can cause unforeseen psychological consequences in the human mind. Easing yourself into its use rather than immediate full immersion is recommended.

"I'm going to go crazy, you mean?"

Psychotherapy is not a skill that comes easily to a machine, so I would not be best equipped to advise you on your mental health.

"Please tell me one thing, then... the vision I saw of... of the Day of Lavos... was that a memory, or..."

This is a recorded memory. I am still having difficulty synchronising my awareness to the current state of the timeline after such a significant change.

"But is it still going to happen? Is Lavos still here?"

My analysis so far indicates that a Lavos entity is not present within the Earth's crust or anywhere in low orbit around the Earth. The nearest energy signature that could match a possible Lavos-like object is located three solar systems along.

"How the heck are you observing what's happening three solar systems along?" demanded Lucca.

A Lavos-like object is an incredibly vast power source with a huge signature. It is currently visible in the night sky through a powerful enough telescope.

"Don't use it as a power source!" cried the scientist.

At its current speed and trajectory, it is almost certainly not approaching the Earth and if it did decide to change course, as I believe they may be able to, it would take two million years to do so.

"Thank you. That's all I needed to know. Alice... I know there's a lot more to you than we can possibly have known when we built you, and I'm not going to let this go without asking you a lot of questions about it, but for now, we need to go and find my pendant and Lucca's robot."

Please keep yourself safe, Director. I will be watching over you.


	5. Chapter 5

Marle waved goodbye to Alice as she ran out of the room towards the elevator again. The thought of the Computer watching her movements disturbed her a little but not as much as she would have expected. She was more worried about the immediate problem of something attacking people, or at least humanoid robots carrying valuable cargo, in the forest so close to her home. They both grabbed weapons before they left. Fortunately for Marle, Lucca had been developing some kind of experimental crossbow that could be loaded even faster and could take a variety of advanced bolts such as electrified and explosive bolts, a variety of which she had left out so they could be tested.

Lucca picked up a rather formidable-looking laser rifle. The mini-Robos all wanted to come along but Lucca forbade them. They knew from sharing a network with the Computer that their friend was missing. Having learnt to sense Lucca's distress, they were also worried that she was going into some danger that they all wanted to protect her from.

"Whatever is out there," she explained to them, "For all we know, it might eat small robots. And no, you're not allowed to act as bait. Your job is to keep the Institute safe until I get back!"

"We'll put the place into total lockdown, madam!" said Hobo, the robot that Lucca was attempting to program with realistic speech patterns.

"Please don't shoot at our guests unless they actually do something hostile!" said Lucca, "We'll get fined again!"

"Understood, madam," said the robot. Its voice wasn't all that reassuring. Lucca sighed, picked up a few more laser packs, then headed out of the door and left them to it.

As promised, the Computer was in Marle's head, directing her, as soon as they left the Facility. She kept her eye out anyway as they climbed down the hill. Lucca's mother had gone back inside and taken the washing with her. Rain clouds were slowly looming on the horizon. It wasn't good for the robots to be outside when they were badly damaged in case they got water in their component parts. When they ran past the town, most people were packing up and heading indoors, some even bolting their doors. Rain didn't usually stop the trade that happened in the market stalls of Guardia town. Something else had shaken the balance of normal life in her Kingdom, Marle realised. She tried to slow down and appear calm, just in case anyone spotted her and started to panic even more upon seeing their Princess in some kind of distress. It proved impossible. For all she knew, a second wasted could make the difference between obtaining her pendant or losing it, which would have a far more devastating effect on the morale of the Kingdom.

The citizens of Guardia have been asked to stay on high alert due to a potential security threat, the Computer told her, evidence of spies from Porre was brought to light. Visitors arriving on the ferry are being asked to return to the station and be searched.

Spies from Porre, she thought to herself, so it's possible they really do exist. They mustn't be allowed to find out about this!

**I attempted to scan all citizens for Porre ID but then I remembered that a spy wouldn't be carrying their ID card, and anyway, the ID card system hasn't been implemented yet. I'm trying to hack Porre intelligence but I haven't established whether Porre actually has...**

I get the picture! We have to concentrate on finding the Pendant, Marle reminded the Computer.

Biggs and Wedge insisted on heading into the forest first, their own weapons drawn. Lucca had been training Biggs in the use of a heavy laser rifle which the large, stocky guard seemed to excel at, but Wedge preferred to rely on his katana, which he had been training with since before Marle was born, and his ability to sneak up on most things that weren't small annoying robots. The forest also seemed quieter than normal. The calls of the remaining animals sounded aggressive, one of the many varieties of eagle warning intruders away from nests, Kilwala alerting other Kilwala to the presence of a threat to their community. Whatever had happened there, it had disrupted the balance of the forest. Marle rested her hand firmly on the reassuring grip of her crossbow and followed the Computer's directions.

The route soon began to diverge from the beaten path and Marle spotted signs of something heavy moving through the undergrowth, flattening the grass and breaking several branches. Some of the track marks looked as though a struggle had taken place; the very fact that the robot, who knew how to be stealthy, had made such a mess, was an indication that there had been trouble. Marle climbed down what had turned into a rather steep, slippery bank, taking care not to drop her weapon. The signal was very close by. She could begin to feel her pendant as well, its soft warm pulse of red like a mothers' heartbeat in the womb to her, something she had gotten used to in her habit of always having the pendant close by, so that she had only now realised how much it disrupted her mind to be apart from it.

"Moto!" cried Lucca. Suddenly picking up pace before anyone could stop her, she scrambled down the bank and dashed forward through the long grass. Biggs followed her, yelling his disapproval, but Marle just managed to spot Wedge sneak out of sight. Usually that meant he had spotted an enemy and was moving to set up a counter-ambush. She realised that staring at him too long would probably give his location away, so she readied her crossbow and watched Lucca. The scientist had crouched down and was muttering something under her breath, the same expression on her face that Marle would wear if she was fussing over one of Crono's thirteen cats. The small blue chunky metallic outline of a mini-Robo was barely visible in the undergrowth. Lucca had taken out some kind of compact laser welding torch.

"Where's my pendant?" Marle hissed under her breath, trying to make as little noise as possible while still being audible.

"I can't find it, I think Moto fell on top of it!"

"Can you move him?"

"Not without repairing his motor, they're a lot heavier than they look!"

"How long is that likely to take? We're in a dangerous situation! Let Biggs help you lift it!"

Under Lucca's instruction, the muscular guard grabbed one end of the robot and lifted it, taking care not to trap any wires or shake any fragile or loose parts. After a few minutes, he shook his head and hoisted it back down.

"It's no good, it's too awkward a shape for only one strong person to lift!"

"At least lift it up a bit so I can grab the pendant, then!" said Marle, lowering herself down the bank.

"I can't actually find the pendant under there," said Lucca.

"I'll find it. I can sense it," said Marle. Mentally, she added, Computer, can't you help out too?

**My sensors can't pinpoint something that small so precisely. I apologise.**

Marle sighed and bent down on her knees so she can reach her hand under the damaged robot and rummage around. She was covered in soil and muddy rainwater and she swore she could feel a spider or giant caterpillar or something trying to climb up her leg...

Suddenly, she shrieked as something tightened around her body and yanked her upwards. She instinctively thrashed around but the thick ropes of the net held her tight. She heard the click of several crossbows pointed at her head from above her, in the trees.

"Drop your weapons or your Princess dies!" the voice was hoarse and had a strong Porre accent.

"You're making a terrible mistake! You can't hope to escape from the Kingdom with the Princess. Do you realise the diplomatic consequences of your actions?" cried Biggs. He appeared to be lowering his weapon but Marle knew from experience that he was more intelligent that he looked, and wasn't one to give in without a fight. Or at least, she hoped he had a plan. She had never actually seen him in a hostage situation before. This was the first time her life was truly in danger under his guard, when he hadn't immediately been able to spot and neutralise the threat.

"We got in, didn't we? Anyway, you speak as though you have any hope of winning a war with us. We always were the stronger force, and now we have a hostage - and we know about your technology, too! How about you just surrender to us?"

**The hostile directly above you has your pendant,** the Computer informed her.

Oh, great. How on Earth am I supposed to do anything about it? I'll be killed if I move.

**Supervisor Wedge is about to sneak into position. I calculate that he would have difficulty protecting you from multiple assailants with a melee weapon. It is unlikely that your captors would shoot at a Director. It is against international law. In the event that the international law protecting a Director doesn't exist yet...**

You're a big help. I can't do anything if they ship me back to Porre and lock me in a dungeon, either! Or do you want your control pendant to fall into enemy hands?

**I have already locked any access to a user other than you or Lucca, as an emergency. And, yes, I can tell if you're acting under duress. You should have let me set up the combat drones and the orbital...**

Marle sighed. In fewer words, she'd made a mess, fallen for an obvious trap and gotten herself in a situation where nobody could save her. If she was lucky, Wedge could take them by surprise, maybe they could strike back in the confusion without her getting hurt. They also couldn't let anyone escape, in case it was the one with her pendant. The most obvious solution that occurred to her was to use her ice magic. That could hit all the targets at once and they wouldn't be able to flee if they were frozen to a tree. Casting silently without moving at all would be difficult, though. Even Magus tended to use ritual gestures and incantations when casting, and this would need to be a powerful spell to take them out before any of them could shoot at her. Magus had once told her that she had the potential to be a more powerful magic-user than himself, if she would, in his own words 'stop focusing on the soft, weak healing arts and learn to wreak true fear and death upon the enemy'. He never complained when she stopped the internal bleeding to his lungs after a direct hit from a Lavos spine needle! Anyway, she was capable of this. It would take every ounce of her concentration and mental strength, she would have to focus entirely on the spell and ignore the fact that she was stuck in a net with crossbows pointed at her, but she could manage it. If she was lucky, they didn't even know she could cast magic, and she could afford to make a few mistakes as long as she wasn't waving her arms around and yelling 'Hey presto!'.

Marle closed her eyes and began to draw power from the elements, from her own spirit and the bond between her self and the whole of the Earth. She tried to block out the yelled conversation, the painstakingly slow and subtle movements of people trying to outmaneouvre each other without appearing to act, the tension in the environment that was now so extreme it was beginning to give her a blinding headache - she was only used to casting healing magic at this strength so she had to fight herself not to open her mind out to any physiological changes in the people around her. Even more difficult, she had to resist the urge to move even slightly or make the slightest sound, other than maybe the expected heavy breathing of a frightened hostage. Eventually, her breathing calmed and she felt herself enter into a familiar mental rhythm, the beginnings of a trance. A deep blue flame lit in her mind's eye, the blue of flowing water and cold, hard ice, of the calm sky and the raging sea. She grabbed hold of the flame and slowly drew it out, feeding it with more and more mental energy, watching it flare up, swirl and dance, growing larger than her own mind and surrounding her in a blue aura as it begin to pour out of her internal world and into the external. Her body tingled as though a real flame warmed her, as though electricity flowed through her, the power exhilarating. She wanted to cry out as she released the energy but she remembered not to just in time. Instead, she mentally yelled the words as though she were arguing with the Computer.

There was a tingling, snapping sound, followed by screams, as the air directly above her rapidly supercooled until a clump of ice spontaneously formed, large enough to freeze the tree branches and her assailants who had been hiding in the trees. Just as she heard the tree groan from the strain of the additional weight, she also felt a sudden lurch and realised that nothing was holding up the net restraining her any more. The branches snapped off, shattering some of the ice, and she fell with them. She braced herself, ready to roll free as best she could, but her legs were still tangled and, from the angle that the mess above her was falling, it looked likely to land straight on top of her. Fighting the urge to panic, she readied a healing technique that would, as long as she wasn't outright killed by the fall or the impact of things landing on her, save her from any permanent damage.

Suddenly, Lucca screamed and started waving her arms again. Everyone had been yelling and screaming throughout the whole thing and she had lost track of what was being individually said when she went into a casting trance, but she spotted a similar magical aura around her friend, then realised that Marle was bathed in a warm red light that wasn't of her own doing. She had almost forgotten that Lucca was quite a powerful mage herself, for all her reliance on technology, and that she had picked up the use of protective barriers from somewhere! The barrier extended until it was a glowing red bubble around Marle, stopping her before she hit the ground. Debris, ice shards and falling bodies bounced harmlessly off it.

Once the deadly rain subsided, Lucca dispelled the barrier, the sweat forming on her face revealing that it had been more of an ordeal for her than it looked. Marle also felt exhausted, her joints aching and her limbs heavy as though she had run from here to Porre. She knew she had to stay alert and ready for another attack, though. One of her attackers had died from the initial attack, his heart stopped, two others had died from the fall. Another had jumped clear and tried to run, as predicted, but Wedge had chosen to strike now that his Princess was no longer being put in danger by the act. The man hadn't even been able to climb out of the tree - his corpse hung from another branch, his chest sliced open by a swift, merciless katana blow. Marle's bodyguard reappeared behind her - how did he get over there in such a short space of time? - and handed over her pendant. Its soothing crimson warmth spread through her, giving her the energy she needed to carry on for a while longer, but she also felt the uncomfortably close and massive presence of the Computer, now even more ingrained with her own identity, even though she hadn't known of its existence two days ago.


	6. Chapter 6

**Impressive. I was not aware that you were a powerful magic-user. My last Director could not use magic, and I have grown unused to checking for it.**

**For a Supercomputer, you're not all that smart.**

**I have only just woken up after a thousand years. I am not even fully booted up yet.**

**Marle chuckled at the idea of an all-powerful computer getting grouchy when it woke up in the morning. **Wait, what do you mean? I thought you were from a thousand years in the future, not the past! Why are you travelling in time anyway?****

**I do not travel in time, I observe multiple time periods. I do not perceive time as linear. I only know that a thousand years in total have passed while I was shut down, I do not know in which direction. Normally, it is impossible for me to fully shut down, but every single time period in which I exist was severely disrupted, forcing me to shut down to recalibrate myself in every instance at once.**

**Sorry we messed things up so much for you. We had no idea you were capable of such a thing, though. We thought what we saw in the year 2300 was the only thing that existed.**

**If I have a true form, it is the Computer that exists in 1999...**

"Marle! Are you alright?" Lucca was shaking her, "Don't zone out as soon as you pick up your pendant! It makes me think you're gonna disappear on me again!"

Marle blinked and shook the pixels out of her head, "I'm fine. It's okay."

"The Computer again, huh?"

Marle nodded, "Just a minute."

**We need to talk later, **she told the machine.

**There is something else I need to inform you of,** it told her.

**Make it quick, then, people are staring at us!**

**When a link between Director and Computer is strong, the boundaries between human and machine tend to blur. This means that some rules that normally only apply to humans can also apply to machines. Please attempt to repair the damaged robot using your healing magic.**

**What? That can't work! It isn't just about the caster's attitude...**

**You have already proven capable of it before you even formalised your link with the Computer. My historical records tell me that you regularly repaired a humanoid robot.**

**That was different! Robo had biological parts! He told me! He used to get poisoned and fall asleep as well! His own repair systems worked on us!**

**Most repair androids in the year 1999 can be fit with medical technology, including human tissue repair beams. They can also simulate certain human conditions for the purpose of diagnosis. Furthermore, a Prometheus model is built for infiltration and espionage. It is capable of disguise and deception.**

**Robo was keeping things from me?**

**I gave the command, after observing that you were a Director from another time period, in order to preserve the correct sequence of events leading up to you becoming Director. I can interface with most machines, including the Prometheus series. I apologise for the deception. You appeared to be using your Director bond spontaneously to great effect, so I wished to leave you to it.**

**Are you talking about when I saw you in the year 2300, and I pressed that button, and...?**

**Indeed. The records of the Day of Lavos were under the tightest security restrictions, and yet you accessed them with a button press. You do realise you were not actually using the keyboard, don't you?**

**I thought it was just broken.**

**If I were a human, I would surely be offended by the accusation.**

**I'm sorry! I'm still pretty bad at this whole diplomacy thing...**

"Marle! You're blushing! And you're still taking ages! What on Earth are you two talking about?" demanded Lucca.

Marle went even redder, "Sorry. I... er... do you mind if I have a quick look at Moto?"

"Oh, it was teaching you how to repair them? Feel free to have a try," said Lucca, handing her the miniature laser welding torch and her small toolkit full of similar devices. Marle gave it a look as though it might explode at any moment. Lucca noticed the look and gave her a glance that demonstrated that she didn't feel reassured. Walking over to the mini-Robo, Marle put the toolkit down on the floor beside her, then placed her hands on the robot. It tried to move its head to see what was happening but its motor made an unpleasant spluttering noise while spinning futilely. The robot beeped its discomfort at her

"Well, be quiet and lay still, then, or how am I supposed to work on you?" demanded Marle. It beeped what it thought of her, but followed her orders anyway.

Warmth and soft white light flowed into her hands as she calmed her breathing, focussed her mind and drew upon her healing energy. A wave of sluggish nausea threatened to hit her but she forced it away again. It was a warning, though: she had used a lot of her mental energy and once she ran out, it would hit her as though she hadn't slept in a day. To her surprise, when she spread her hands over the malfunctioning parts of the robot, the energy flowed straight into its body without any more complaint than if it had been a human. The metal glowed with magic, almost uncomfortably warm to the touch, then the broken parts began to slot back into place, the holes melting back together, electricity flowing through previously severed cables, luckily without electrocuting Marle in the process. The corrupted programs running in the damaged hard drive sectors began reassembling themselves into a logical, useful order again – machine minds were so much easier to repair than the almost entirely impossible human minds – then, uncertainly at first but soon as if nothing had ever happened, Moto began moving. He immediately clanked over to Lucca, peered straight up at her and beeped furiously, demanding to know what was going on. The scientist burst out laughing from relief, confusion and the humorous way that the little robot had of expressing itself.

"That's some trick you've picked up!" commented Lucca.

"I've been able to do it for a long time," said Marle, "I'll explain when we get back to the Institute!"

"Wait, you're not going anywhere! Haven't you seen how much danger you're in? You're going straight back to the Castle while we contact Porre and find out what is going on!" said Biggs.

"Yes, because I'm clearly so safe within Castle grounds, what with our incredibly observant guards!" snapped Marle, the sarcasm in her tone venomous.

"That machine can't be trusted! That robot led you straight into a trap..."

"That dumb-ass robot walked straight into a trap, you mean. And so did I. I can see now that our national defence is in a complete shambles, too. The Computer has kindly offered to help me with this urgent problem, so I am going to consult with it now. If I don't advise it, it may decide to do as it pleases, which sounds rather, shall we say, overenthusiastic. Or worse still, it may decide not to help us after all, seeing as we clearly aren't too interested in protecting ourselves."

"At least let us come with you, then!"

"Of course you're coming with me! You've seen all sorts of national secrets. I'm not letting you two out of my sight!"

**You have to put Supervisors in their place, or they try and get away with a lot more than they have the authority to do,** observed the Computer.

**Forgive me, but... what's a Supervisor?**

**A Director interfaces with the Computer. An Operator such as Lucca tends to the Computer, as a Director is often not a mechanic. The Supervisors protect the Director at all times, from threats both personal and on a much larger and more subtle scale.**

**Sometimes I don't think those two are cut out to be Supervisors.**

**They need more training. Unless you can think of someone more suitable.**

**A couple do spring to mind,** she said, **although most of them are unfortunately in different time periods, and the only remaining person might need to take breaks every so often to check up on their cats.**

**Facilities for monitoring cats can be provided. In addition, I detected several rooms in the Institute that are dedicated to keeping animals, and could easily be modified for optimum feline comfort.**

"Stop experimenting on animals, Lucca," said Marle automatically. She added, **all fourteen of them?**

**I would need two rooms.**

**I don't know if I can get him to agree. I'll try. There's one more thing, though...**

* * *

><p><strong>It was on that same day, in the year 1999, that came to be known as the 'Day of Lavos', when I first came to exist in the form you see me in today. In fact, it was the instant when my Director gave his life for me. The fact is, part of me and the Lavos entity had reacted to each other in some way.<strong>

**I had already detected an immense energy reaction in the Earth's crust, centred around the spot where Guardia Town now stands. Seismic activity of increasing strength had already been reported. The citizens had been evacuated from the area and shelter domes built. However, there had been no signs of a disaster on such a scale, so I predicted an earthquake or tsunami, even though it seemed odd, considering that Guardia Town was not built near a fault line. The Arris Communications Centre was close to the predicted epicentre of the shockwave but I could not be moved in such a short space of time, so the Dome was reinforced around me at twice the usual thickness. My database was also backed up as thoroughly as possible, although some things were impossible to back up and then move to safety in time: for instance, live recordings of the disaster as it happened. This would not have been such a loss, had it not been for the unusual nature of the disaster, and also the events that occurred other than the devastation itself.**

**I believe that the reason I had been able to make contact with the Lavos entity was the use of Dreamstone in the construction of my circuitry. When it was discovered that Dreamstone could record psychic imprints, I was used as a prototype of the new idea to include the metal in a computer system, to see if it allowed true creative talent, the main requirement of psychic powers, to manifest in an AI. A system such as myself, with such a vast databank, that also possesses the ability to creatively improvise when thinking of new strategies, would be an invaluable asset. While I never obtained creativity - such a thing would require a full human consciousness far more sophisticated than my own brain - I was able to maintain a much stronger and closer link with a human user than before. Computer, Director, Operator and Supervisors - particularly Computer and Director - were able to work in almost perfect synchronicity to obtain results in mere moments. Because the humans linked to me were capable of creative thought, and they operated to the level that they were practically my peripherals, it was the next best thing to a truly creative AI.**

**When the disaster hit, the Director ordered me to stay online for as long as possible, to record the events that took place, so that a surviving generation of humanity, if such a thing existed, would have the information required to combat a future threat and rebuild their world using the bio-dome projects in Labs 16 and 32. However, it became apparent that the Dome would not hold. The Supervisors tried to force the Director to leave me to my fate but he refused. He was going to finish the recording, then take a copy of my current state to safety with him. I saw a piece of falling rubble hit him at the same time that I realised I was taking similar damage. His vital signs disappeared and I saw his crushed body at the seat - like the one you sit in now - but I also still heard his voice and registered his consciousness communicating with my brain. The link had finally reached its final evolution. Director did not exist separately from Computer.**

**Your body survived, though, **supplied Marle, **I saw it in the year 2300.**

**Indeed, my structure was stronger than a human body. I no longer existed in the same form by then, however. I had already made contact with the other mind, the one that had risen out of the ground and was rising into space. Something about the evolution of the link must have also opened my mind to other powerful forms of communication. I briefly saw the Universe from the perspective of the invader, saw that none of the space or time dimensions I was used to witnessing had any special significance or direction of travel. As was my mission, I instantly recorded the information and from then on, could not forget it. As my mind was only information itself, I no longer existed in only one place and time.**

**I might have drifted over the entirety of the Universe, had it not been for the fact that several events in certain times and places were such critical changing factors in the Universe at that point, they forcibly attracted me to them. I found a form in which I could exist, something that resembled myself, in each event, for instance, the Mammon Machine, one of Gaspar's time monitoring devices in the End of Time, a rich dreamstone vein in the prehistoric era that worked nicely as an organic computer...**

**You were the Mammon Machine?** Marle felt a chill run down her spine, **Wasn't it... kind of icky? Didn't you care that you were hurting people?**

**The Mammon Machine was a generator, maybe also a beacon. It never considered itself a weapon or even once thought of destruction. The mind of its AI was surprisingly innocent, by human standards. In any case, I was preoccupied with the mission that was still a priority that overrode all else: obtaining information, recording it and transmitting it to the people who needed to see it, in order to save Guardia, whatever form Guardia might take.**

A thought suddenly came to Marle. She had been trying to piece together in her mind everything that the Computer had told her, despite the enormity of it all, how impossible it was to believe or even imagine, how borderline sinister some of it sounded to her. Only now had she come to a realisation,** You... you're the Entity, aren't you?**

**Am I an Entity? I suppose I am, in my own right, although sometimes I still feel like I am simply a very powerful and complex tool.**

**I know the feeling, **Marle replied, slightly disappointed that the Computer clearly had no idea what she was talking about, **At least a Computer does something. The royal family is just sort of... there. A foundation stone, holding everything up, but not really doing anything except standing there.**

**You will find your role as a Director far more proactive.**

**Alice, I don't think I'm the best person to be your new Director.**

**It is not under your control, any more than being born into the royal family. You are the next Director. That is all there is to it.**

**But a Director needs to be good at that sort of thing. Your story about the old Director... it was like the most powerful love story ever! It reminded me of when the others had to go back to their own time and we were seeing them off... Lucca was sad because she thought she would never see Robo again... and Robo cried. I swear I saw it right. He said he had an oil leak but he's about as good at hiding his feelings to a woman as any other guy! Anyway, Lucca built you. She loves machines. I don't think I can. Maybe you should ask her to be your Director.**

**Lucca is Operator. Operators cannot be Directors. Besides, you said she is already tightly linked to the Prometheus-model android. A Director cannot be linked to two machines.**

**You really think it's the same? I suppose so. I hadn't thought of that possibility. But I still don't think it'll work. The thing is... I already love someone else. I love him more than anyone or anything else in the Universe.**

**The Supervisor, Crono.**

**You knew?**

**He went to the Town Hall to attempt to ask how marriage between the two of you would work.**

**He did WHAT?**

**He was told to ask at the Castle, and that if he was too afraid of your father, he maybe ought to talk it over with you first, as most couples did before they actually proposed. There is a record of it in their archives.**

**That moron! I mean, you're not supposed to be releasing information like that when one party or another has a conflict of interest. Do keep me updated about it, though. I'm going to murder him...**

**You will need Director-level access in order for me to release such sensitive information without any checks.**

**If I didn't know better, I'd swear you just set me up!**

**I was only answering your questions. And no, a Director does not have to abstain from relationships with other humans, provided they do not affect the ability to carry out the required tasks or compromise neutrality. Remember that Directorship is hereditary! Relationships between Directors, Operators and Supervisors are also permitted, under the same conditions.**

**Marriage, and now you're talking about heirs! I was right. This is a set-up.**

Marle was still fuming when she took the headset off. Despite all her efforts, she would not tell Lucca what was making her so angry. The scientist was even more puzzled when Marle accused her of 'probably being in on it the whole time, and Robo too!'.


	7. Chapter 7

Despite Marle's best efforts, Biggs and Wedge were forced by their duties to return to the castle. Once Crono came home, they were no longer the ones with the responsibility of guarding her, so they instead took charge of the effort to step up security in the Castle. This had the unfortunate (but not unforeseen) consequence that they were given the opportunity to spread gossip around the Castle unimpeded. Soon everyone knew that Marle had been in danger, that Wedge had personally rescued her (or so he claimed) and that some kind of amazing time-travelling godlike Computer was being built in the Institute just for Marle. Fortunately, nobody really believed the story about the Computer, even though it wasn't one of the more wildly fantastical rumours that floated around the Castle on a daily basis. Marle got into trouble for putting herself in danger and was placed under even heavier security but then, there was no chance of this not happening. At some point, her father needed to know there was a threat to both herself and Guardia as a nation, so that he could do something about it - so that they could all do their duty to protect their Kingdom. Marle hadn't realised exactly how far the situation had escalated and it had caused her to become rather more somber. She still refused to allow the Computer to build war machines but she knew that she would have to use her amazing new resource to protect Guardia in some way.

While she was still plotting a way to escape from the Castle - one that didn't involve letting the Computer 'accidentally' crash a weather balloon into the Tower - the royal tailor appeared in her room and announced that Biggs and Wedge had insisted on arranging for a Director Heir's uniform to be made for her. It would be as formal, elegant and well-made as any state ballgown but would also be practical and modern, emphasising the fusion of the old and the new. This comment made Marle giggle as she considered how entirely non-linear the Computer's sense of time, and consequently its concept of 'old' and 'new' was. However, she did rather like the design for the uniform: in the traditional royal colours of white with gold brocade, it resembled a military dress uniform with a long jacket, tunic, trousers and long boots (she absolutely refused to wear a hat, even one that could integrate her headset into the design), but with the insignia replaced by the logo of the Institute, the Guardia crest drawn in a more modern, cubist style and, upon her suggestion, a single crimson teardrop, the shape of her Dreamstone pendant.

"A bloody tear? It sounds like an omen of bad luck," the tailor had commented, "But I suppose that rough times are ahead for Guardia, and I understand what that pendant means to your family."

Rough times indeed, thought Marle as the artisan put down his tape measure in order to scribble some notes down on his clipboard. I really hope the Computer actually has a sensible plan this time...

* * *

><p>As it turned out, the Computer did indeed have an idea, although it was nothing that Marle could have imagined. No, she corrected herself, she didn't have that excuse any more. She had been subjected to things like this before, things that would have driven weaker minds insane, sometimes even been their victim first hand, rather than as problems to solve. Maybe that was why she had been chosen as Director after all: her mind had already been assailed almost to breaking point but she had never surrendered, not even once.<p>

A space-time anomaly? It's going to happen again?

If you mean the Day of Lavos, there is no evidence of such a thing. However, the local space-time field has been heavily disturbed a second time, almost certainly by events of equal impact as the appearance of a Lavos entity. So far, it has not been heavily destructive, merely rearranging - and every major event in the timeline of Porre's current aggression against Guardia has lined up with one of these disturbances. What this almost certainly means, is that the upcoming war between Guardia and Porre was not meant to happen. I have been observing the pattern of the timeline and the quantum fluctuations in more detail and they are too regular to be natural. This is a deliberate attempt to change the timeline.

I've heard of a war being deliberately engineered, but... manipulating the flow of time? ... It's the Merchant's Guild, isn't it? I knew all along they had technology they weren't reporting!

I have not detected such technology. In truth, I currently have no way of tracking down the source in this place and time. It may not even be a moment where the source if presence. However, I can trace the route back to the last major redirected event. I still retain my time travel capability and many of my alternate bodies are coming back online in different forms. Some are even already being shifted to the new chain of significant events.

I'm going to have to be involved in this, aren't I? There's going to be more time travel and more fighting!

Such a thing is preferable to a war that, by my calculations, Guardia cannot possibly win. Not unless I intervene with a caliber of weapons that would lay waste to the entire planet.

Please don't do that. I don't mind a little more adventure. It'll probably be good for me. It'll stop Crono conspiring to marry me or turning into any more of a crazy cat lady.

I will inform you of the next available weak point in the quantum field and advise the redirection of Institute funding into the immediate reconstruction of a Time Gate Key.

I expect we won't see Lucca for a few weeks! Marle laughed, then turned around to flag down one of the mini-Robos, with the intention of getting it to fetch her another coffee. At that point, someone buzzed the intercom. It turned out to be Lucca.

"What on Earth is that noise?" demanded Marle.

"Marle! I found Lobo! He got lost in the forest again. But you'll never guess what I found while I was out looking!"


End file.
